ETH and Climate Foundation cooperate on innovations in construction
The Department of Building Technology and Construction at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and the Swiss Climate Foundation are jointly promoting climate-friendly building materials and methods. They also want to publicise these and establish them on the market.
The Chair of Building Technology and Construction(BUK ETHZ) at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Climate Foundation will be working together in future on climate-friendly building materials and methods. According to a joint press release, the cooperation includes the assessment of funding applications received by the Swiss Climate Foundation as well as publicising the funding opportunities and the innovations being supported.
New climate-friendly materials and construction methods are necessary for the climate adaptation of the property sector. Innovative solutions need to be tested and demonstrated in pilot projects in order to make them marketable and publicised. The BUK ETHZ will assess the practicability of innovations in addition to the Swiss Climate Foundation and thus help to minimise the residual risk. The Climate Foundation could compensate for financial weaknesses.
“Initial applications in the construction sector are always a difficult and risky phase for new products and methods,” the two lecturers Daniel Studer and Daniel Mettler from BUK ETHZ are quoted as saying. “With this collaboration, we can make an important contribution to the transformation of the construction industry. This is demonstrated by spin-offs such as FenX or Oxara from the ETH environment, which were supported by the Climate Foundation.”
FenX transforms mineral waste into high-performance and sustainable insulating materials for the construction industry. Oxara develops cement-free admixtures and binder technology that enables the upcycling of construction waste and excavated materials in a variety of concrete and block applications.